Chapter 107: Walking in Shadow.
Seven was awoken by a blaring alarm that seemed to roll through the compound like a wave of pure headache washing over everyone and everything in its path.
Visa whom he'd been sleeping atop of sat bolt upright with a loud snort and looked around bleary-eyed, "Ugh wazzat?" she groaned obviously trying to force her mind through the narrow aperture of sleep and back into full consciousness.
Thankfully the adrenaline kick of nearly being catapulted across the room by his Claw lover snapped Seven out of his stupor and back into reality, causing his senses to snap sharp like someone flicking his balls with a rubber band.
"It's the perimeter alarm!!" he exclaimed rolling out of bed and not even bothering to get fully dressed before jumping into his power armour as Visa fought against their sheets and momentarily turning into a scene of a female Claw fighting some kind of tentacled hentai monster that was attempting to restrain her before having its wicked way with her before she finally managed to break free and leap to her feet.
As the pair of them burst out of their room in the now repurposed saloon they immediately saw some of the Gatorclaws that had set up camp alongside the freed slaves in town pouring out of the mines all carrying some form of melee weaponry that had obviously been produced in the Safari Zone.
The most recognisable among them was Thundertail who had led the group over here in the first place, she came bounding up to them now kitted out in the upgraded version of the armour the rest of Seven's team and Eve had been working on while also holding what appeared to be some kind of over-sized sword that had been made from cut and sharpened steel, she was also now supporting a rather nasty looking spiky morningstar on the tip of her tail.
"What is noise? What happening?" she asked having to shout over the din.
"Something has tripped the perimeter alarm, the protectrons guarding this place have been switched back into security mode and they are programmed to patrol this place and defend it while also alerting us to any encroaching threats," Seven said not sure how much his explanation Thundertail was grasping but she seemed to understand.
"Gatorclaws protect the settlers make sure nothing gets into the mines, we'll deal with whatever this is!" Seven called out to the large group of confused-looking Gatorclaws who were all looking around themselves for the source of the unholy din.
All of them nodded and head back the way they'd come to form a phalanx at the entrance to the mines where some of the freed human slaves were now peeking out to see what was going on.
Seven. Visa and Thundertail all headed towards the source of the noise and that's when they all noticed the other Protectron Sherrif's all heading in that direction as well, when they arrived they found one of the potectrons with a large spinning red light inside its head and it appeared to have had one of its legs shot off though it was still firing into the darkness with its lasers at some unseen assailant.
A soft thud to his left drew Seven's attention and he turned just in time to see a small orb-like object roll to a stop, "Grenade!!!" he yelled causing both Visa and Thundertail to dive for cover while out of pure instinct, Seven surrounded the orb in telekinetic energy but before he could pitch it back the way it had come it detonated.
But rather than explode in a blast of shrapnel or plasma the grenade emitted a blinding flash of white light which fried Seven's night vision and caused him to her recoil trying to shield his eyes.
While he couldn't see them he heard about three more of the stun grenades landing all around him so without even thinking Seven sent a powerful wave of telekinetic energy out into the darkness in the direction he hoped they'd come from pitching all but one of the unseen orbs with it.
These unfortunately were not stun grenades like the first one, each one detonated sending out a brilliant blue wave of energy in an ever-expanding bubble from their flash point which as soon as it made contact with his suit sent the whole thing dark.
"Fuck! EMP!" Seven yelled as his suit went into a reboot sequence, while its internal circuitry was hardened to protect it from EMP it was not fully shielded against its effects and while the suit itself would survive the attack it would need to reboot to restore functionality, which essentially left Seven a man in a can until the suit unlocked.
A shot rang off the hull making the whole suit ring like a bell as someone tried to pierce it, this was swiftly followed by a second one from a different direction which impacted against the helmet, fortunately, whoever was shooting didn't seem to be using armour piercing ammo or right about then Seven would have had a rather nasty hole right through his face.
From his left, he heard Visa bellow a roar as she realised her male was being shot at and she charged off into the darkness swiftly followed by Thundertail in hot pursuit, "Fuck this shit!" Seven yelled to himself and using his telekinetic hands he reached for the manual release of the back of the suit and cranked it to free himself though now it did leave him standing out in the field in fuck all but his underwear.
Just in time, he threw up a telekinetic bubble shield around his body to protect himself from incoming fire while he wrenched his plasma rifle from his suit's frozen hands, no sooner had he freed it than he felt something impact the shield making the energy ripple like water around him.
Having caught what looked like a muzzle flash off to his right Seven turned and fired in the perceived direction of the shot, he knew the chances of hitting the perpetrator in the pitch black was slim but it would at least make them get their heads down if it went close.
A series of glowing green projectiles ripped from the gun and lit the area up in an eerie green glow as they sailed towards where Seven had perceived the shot to have come from and no sooner had they impacted than they set some foliage on fire causing the area around it to become illuminated.
That's when he saw them, human figures dressed all in black who melted into the shadows around them as rapidly as they'd been exposed, 'No you fucking don't!!" Seven yelled firing at the shadows he tried reaching out with his mind but without a true target to grab his invisible hands got hold of nothing but air.
But his shots were not so unlucky as he saw one of them impact a figure sending it spiralling as the green plasma bored a glowing and smoking hole right through its torso, but its comrades didn't return for it they simply melted into the night and vanished like phantoms.
Shortly after Seven was able to get his armour back up and running and he climbed back into the suit again just before Visa and Thundertail emerged from the shadows next to the downed potectron which had now thankfully shut off its alarm call, the other Sherrif's were combing the hillside where the figures had been but it appeared they were having no luck.
"Anything?' he asked and both of the Claw girls shook their heads, "Cowards run into night when they see lucky Claw Visa and Thundertail coming," Thundertail said.